Lines of Code
by sharinganavenger
Summary: A collection of drabbles about the Tronverse and the programs and users who live there. A variety of topics and characters, open to requests.
1. Keystone

A/N: Basically just using this fic as a dumping ground for drabbles I actually like. It's part of my ongoing attempts to learn to write _short_ things, so they all actually will be 100 words (whatever the site counter may claim :P). Given the shortness, if anyone pokes me with a topic request, they've got pretty good odds of getting it; these don't take long.

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><p>When a program first compiled, a lot was slow. Hazy. It took time to adapt to the system, feel your place in it and beyond it—to break past rote function and the simplicity of prewritten tasks to <em>self<em>, identity, choice. For some programs, it was a matter of milis—others would take a full cycle, or more, to fully self-define. Ram always joked that his sense of humor rezzed in before he did.

Tron had been running for just over three hundred milicycles. Not everything felt sure, not everything was certain—but he knew one thing.

He _hated_ Sark.


	2. Waiting Game

Her disk rebounded off the walls, scoring a bright line across the blackness before slamming back to her grip in a blue-white arc.

Quorra stared blankly at the walls of her training room, hissed a burst of furious static as her processing flared with fury, grief, loss.

They were _all_ gone.

She threw her disk again, replacing the target in her sights with Clu, Rinzler, the Black Guard—_any_ of her people's murderers. _Or those who stood by while it happened_. She'd been to the city, seen the fireworks, celebratory Games—slaughter to celebrate slaughter.

She'd stood by then, too.


	3. Turnaround

The world upended, dashing Sam's fragile hopes as quickly as it flipped his insides.

He slammed against the ceiling—_floor?—_let out a groan of pain as he scrambled to stand. The program was already launching towards him—he crashed his disk down, watched with a sinking heart as his opponent tucked, turned, and landed astride the gap.

_I'm not going to win this._

He'd felt confident enough, going in. It was like Dad's stories—the exciting ones, of combat and escape. Adventure. Seriously, if his dad could do this, Sam _knew_ he could manage.

He hadn't counted on Rinzler.


	4. Look Forward

"Well, man? What do you think?"

Yori repressed a smile as Tron hesitated. Flynn's new system was a flat black expanse, empty of programs, with no structure beyond the bare essentials. It wasn't entirely uninteresting—she itched to explore that new Portal interface, for one—but the downsides were beautifully clear in her counterpart's expression as he stared uncertainly around.

He glanced to her, and she returned the look, mouth curving up. _Sorry, program. He asked you. _Users, Flynn—there was a _reason_ most systems were finished before programs rezzed in.

Tron smiled back, turned to Flynn. "It's something new."


	5. Shards

A/N: For winzler's request. This was the hardest yet by far—just 'cause I had to cut down _so much_. :) Less explanation than brief trauma-flash, but here you go._  
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><p><em>ERROR.<em>

Reboot crackled painfully, malfunction jarring. _Failure._ His disk seared his back—incapacitating, systems jolting raggedly online.

_What…?_

Bright agony answered his access attempts, and Rinzler felt his spine curl, fists tight against ground—he was on the ground (_where, not _why_, not permitted a why_).

Aural sensors activated; noise surged. Stuttering, edged, _broken_.

Was he always broken?

Vision returned.

Shattered blue code surrounded him.

_NO._

The thought was wrong—he was—_no…_ A face, name, something _missing_. She was_ gone_, and he groped through the jagged void of memory, but there was _nothing._

Always nothing.

"Rinzler?" Clu sounded wary.


	6. A Great Feeling

A/N: ...Aaand, Cyberbutterfly's fifth request. Gonna take me awhile to get through all of those. :)

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><p>"An actuary? Really?"<p>

Ram glowered, but ignored him. _For now._ His eyes stayed fixed on the opponent's disk, gripped in a large, heavy hand. Red lines traced up the program's arm, down his chest, outlined the derisive face. He thought he'd seen the pattern before, a couple cells down. _Before Sark's speech._

"You gonna calculate at me, bit-brain? Offer me investments?"

Okay, this guy was just embarrassing. Ram _specialized_ in getting on people's circuits.

"Nah." He ducked the throw, dove forward and let his own disk fly. "You're not worth it."

"Could help you plan for your future needs, though."


	7. Whole

A/N: I'd planned to go for something different next, to keep up my theme of varied characters/perspectives, but screw that; I like writing Tronzler. :) This is for Cyberbutterfly's first request, and Moore12's vote of "more Tronzler or Ram"._  
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><p><em>I fight for the Users.<em>

It was silent and aloud, a whisper screamed through corrupted noise, and he clung to it, grip desperate—_his_, Clu wouldn't take it, not again.

Air shot past, color flaring outside the shell that caged him, but he couldn't feel, couldn't see, was ripping to pieces. Trying was agony. Succeeding _broke_ him, half-edged filters and restrictions shattering before jagged truth. But nothing shattered, nothing was gone, _everything_ was there, lines of command and lies and memory binding, splitting.

He would _destroy_ Clu.

He couldn't harm him.

_Fight for the Users._

Tron did what he could.


	8. Patterns

A/N: Hey, fic-internet. (I'd go poke my LJ account, but it IP-banned me for trying to crack my own password. Maybe later.) Been awhile.

Anyways, have a dubious drabbly thing. Not in any active continuity I've written before. Theoretically still open to drabbling suggestions; I've been more or less not fic-writing for... a while now... _but_ am interested in trying to get back to it. Or at least writing a hundred words a day.

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><p>"…<em>don't<em>."

It was a fragment and a whisper and he couldn't move, couldn't run—couldn't _think_ past the crackling static of command and refusal. He wasn't made for words. And Tron wouldn't beg.

Rinzler didn't know how. Hands clenched at his side as he jerked out of protocol, mask snapping up to meet the other's stare. The program shuddered once, twice, wracking bursts of failure crawling down his spine as he tried to straighten.

The user [_Flynn_] just smiled sadly. A short exhale. A shake of his head. "I'm sorry, man. I really dropped the ball on this one."

"Disk."


End file.
